September 2009
ASSOCIATES IN PROGRESS
By Linda McNabb
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Austin Title is known for its products, services, education and marketing support and for puting a premium on hiring, training and retaining the most qualified professionals to work with real estate professionals since entering the title business in 1953. Company president Mickey Blissit shared with Realty Line many of the reasons his staff is committed to providing superior customer service so that REALTORS will continue having confidence in placing their transactions in Austin Title’s hands. Austin Title has a strong history of delivering high value and satisfaction to its clientele during challenging and changing marketplace conditions. Our philosophy has been to let highly experienced professionals handle transactions efficiently and effectively, with customer service in mind and with best practice standards. Like many in the real estate industry, Austin Title serves an increasingly sophisticated and technologically savvy user base. On the one hand are consumers who have begun taking more proactive roles in managing their personal information. On the other hand are real estate industry professionals who leverage the power of the Internet and wish to know more about transactions, more easily, during the process. One solution to both of these scenarios is Austin Title's DocStop—a simple and passive communication platform that notifies transaction parties when documents become available throughout the settlement process. Along with the document, consumers will receive links that explain transaction details, so they can learn more about their own home sales and purchases. For added value, Austin Title allows consumers to order Just Moved cards. To help agents better leverage their own technology tools, Austin Title provides anniversary reminders. Also for our real estate agent customers, we provide other tools, such as AustinTitle.com Red Carpet Member Services, where agents can keep up with current statistical information using our reports and graphs that detail marketwide
Realty Line of Austin
www.realtylineonline.com
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conditions, as well as information for individual MLS areas. We also have numerous calculators, from calculating taxes and premiums to property investments. Most recently, we began offering a suite of calculators for mobile devices, called Austin Title Agent. Austin Title Agent is a downloadable application suite that is available for many 3G network device platforms, including Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and now, iPhone. Austin Title is also a leader in real estate education, bringing in top instructors and MCE classes and in excess of 20 classMickey Blissit es per month to the various President Austin Title locations. To further develop our educational programs, we began offering a service called "Ask an Expert," which allows interested parties to request additional information about the real estate industry from our panel of experts. We then remove any personal information and post the answers to our website to help visitors who later have the same questions. We believe that both "Ask an Expert" and our educational offerings help us better understand how to deliver value to the people with whom we sit at the transaction table. Today's marketplace demands that companies deliver an increasing amount of value to customers. At Austin Title, we respond to this by leveraging technology and education to better engage real estate agents and consumers directly, because we succeed when agents and consumers have the best tools to make the best decisions. That, and, of course, our people. We are thankful to our staff for making us a force in the marketplace and for the skills and hard work of our support people who keep us moving forward. We are also thankful to central Texans who continue to entrust their business to us.
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